Soar

Chapter 28

"Something is wrong," Erizar murmured.

We had stopped our horses on a hill. Below us in a valley ringed with trees, stood a village. Outside the walls, wheat and corn grew in fields cut from the surrounding wood. Kataj had told Erizar that he had been in contact with the village's elders and they were deciding whether to leave for Ebenric immediately or after the first harvest of the season. It had been several days since their last message and, as with Saridan, Erizar wanted to waste no time finding out the reason.

The stone-and-log walls stood whole, the houses secure, and yet something was not right. There were no workers in the fields, no children in the streets, not even any animals about.

"It's too quiet," I said.

"Have they left already?" Tajir wondered. His horse bobbed its head and danced sideways.

"No," Erizar answered. "We would have passed them on the road."

Movement along the main street caught my eye. "I think I see something," I said and pointed toward the village circle.

Squinting, Erizar said, "It is too far to tell."

With a shrug, Tajir urged his horse forward.

"Wait, Tajir."

"We will never found out more if we sit here. I see no signs of an attack, and Umreo and his thugs enjoy leaving their mark on everything."

"That is what worries me." All the same, Erizar clicked his tongue and his horse started forward. Mine followed without any sign from me.

We stopped at the gate. No one had moved, either to greet or to challenge us, as we rode up. A banner snapped from its place above the gate. Beyond, a door creaked on its hinges. I thought I heard a cat further in.

My horse would not move past the gate. It planted its feet and lowered its head, braced to fight me. Erizar and Tajir continued down the street without noticing, so I quickly swung down and took the bridle firmly in my hands. "I don't like the look of it either, but I'd rather move than get left behind." I pulled on the bridle. At first the horse resisted, but with a snort it finally moved. I decided to lead it rather than get back in the saddle.

Erizar had stopped his horse at the first crossroads, and Tajir was just riding back up a side street. "Nothing," Tajir reported. "It is empty."

"Are there signs of a departure?"

Tajir motioned down the street, where a line of clothes, dusty and dry, hung between houses. "It is like that everywhere I looked. No abandoned plates, no misplaced furniture."

A cat scuttled between shadows and cried plaintively. We continue down the main road and soon the village circle came into sight. Something hung from a post at its center.

Erizar drew his sword with a glance back to me. "Umreo," he growled, urging his horse into a trot. "You spineless, bloodthirsty coward. May you burn"

My horse balked again at the edge of the grass that filled the circle. The grass was trampled and streaked with brown. Patches burned black by fire striped the green. The post was a makeshift gallows, and the thing hanging from it was a body. I turned my face away.

"Mercy," Tajir breathed.

There were more bodies. They had been lined up and executed. Braced against against my horse's flank, I vomited.

A whimper reached my ears, echoing in the deathly silence of the square. Stiffly I turned to see Erizar and Tajir standing among the bodies, their attention fixed on a form imprisoned in a stockade to one side of the circle. I had not seen it at first. It was an old device, set in place long before this massacre.